A study was conducted to test the self-presentation hypotheses that depressives and nondepressives respond differently in public and private settings, and that these differences would be augmented when given a negative expectancy. Subjects were randomly assigned to either an inhibitory expectancy or control condition and placed in both public and private settings. Subjects performed two short-term memory tasks, administered self-reinforcement, and selected from lists of positive and negative questions with the expectancy of gaining feedback about themselves based on their selections. Depressives performed the recall tasks less efficiently than nondepressives independent of both setting and expectancy. However, depressives reinforced themselves significantly more in the private setting compared to the public setting. No effect of expectancy was observed. Depressives selected more negative and less positive feedback than nondepressives, irrespective of setting. The findings partially supported the self-presentational model of depressive behavior. Results are discussed in terms of various motivational models of depression and the need to be sensitive to the nature of the particular behaviors one chooses to examine. A new model of depression, which hypothesizes a functional role of depressive behavior in service of anxiety reduction, is offered, and clinical implications discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-01, Section: B, page: 0516. / Major Professor: Daniel R. Boroto. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77346 |
| Contributors | Bennett, William Scott., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 186 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
Page generated in 0.0018 seconds